LinkedIn Success Principles

By Tony Restell

TRANSFORM YOUR LINKEDIN RESULTS

Start using our proven LinkedIn tactics today

Whether you're a recruiter looking to make your next hire, or an executive wanting to improve your networking, there are some important LinkedIn success principles you should be following.

This isn't a "15 steps to follow on LinkedIn" type post, a checklist of things you can make sure you are doing. It's more about how you should behave on LinkedIn (and indeed all social media) if you're looking to foster strong business networking relationships.

The post was inspired by a great new infographic I came across about LinkedIn - which I've shared below. The core message is one I believe in very strongly - the effectiveness of which I see played out on social media each and every day.

It's all about your mindset and how you approach other people.

You see my experience is that people - be they recruiters or candidates - are still naturally inclined to advertise and shout when they start out with social networking. Maybe it's because of all the advertising we are exposed to nowadays; maybe it's because we've grown up professionally seeing email marketing being used in this way.

I'll admit I don't know exactly why.

But the upshot is the same. Too many people launch into social networking looking to broadcast their messages as their principle goal. This quickly spirals into them posting more and more often... and more and more widely. With the outcome being that their messages are filtered out by the intended recipients as spammy noise.

It's a similar line of thought when you're getting started on LinkedIn, which is why I wanted to share the LinkedIn success principles in this infographic. The key is to treat the LinkedIn medium as the opportunity to engage with people one on one, rather than as a mass marketing channel. Hence the focus on personalising your invitation messages to people, figuring out ways you can provide value and help them. The idea of being a connector who can help bring together other people who will benefit from being introduced to one another.

A decade or so after LinkedIn came onto the scene, I still see far too many people doing things in a "quick and dirty" fashion on LinkedIn - and too few people focused on ensuring people feel like they're being engaged with one-on-one. Well whether you're a recruiter, a candidate or just a regular businessperson going about their day job, it's the latter approach that is producing the results and so it's these types of LinkedIn success principles you should be focused on following...